Letters from Slytherin Dorm
by Nyx
Summary: This is expounding on "Isn't, Aren't, Won't" - plus, it's my first attempt at a longer fic. It turned out shorter than I expected - ah, well.


Letters from Slytherin Dorm  
By Nyx

Strangely enough, this is only a PG.

*  
All my life is on me now, hail the pages turning  
And the future's on the bound, hell don't know my fury  
*

The bed creaks as I throw my trunk onto it and plop down heavily, bouncing on the feathery softness and falling backwards to lie half-on and half-off the bed. Things are changing, I know. Big things. I can feel it - but then the trunk slips down off the mattress, pulling the once-neat covers along with it. I don't move except to let the blankets trapped under my weight escape. They feel slithery along the back of my robe. Snake-like. I've never liked snakes; funny how these things are. I sit up with some effort, and feel the muscles in my back strain; I push the trunk underneath the bed and toss the offending covers aside. 

My footsteps echo in the empty room as I stand and walk over to the window; my friends are all still at the start-of-school banquet. I said I felt sick, but I really only was frightened of my shadow and I wanted to be alone. I don't like admitting that, not even to myself - and it's even more pitiful that I know it and still won't talk to anyone. But Father would think that to be weakness, and I can't let him down. If I let him down, I let the world down, he's always said, and I trust him even if I don't know exactly what he's talking about. How would I be letting the world down? It doesn't matter. I would be, and that's what matters. The sun beats warmly on my face - I have a ground-floor room even though most of the dorm is in the dungeons. The hedges outside are blown in a gentle breeze, and the autumn light casts a golden tinge over everything.

I cross the room again and open my trunk to retrieve a quill and parchment; the latch is cold and slick against my fingertips. I leave a fingerprint on it, and quickly smear it with the corner of my robe. As I pad over to the deep-set window I wonder why it mattered if I left fingerprints on the latch of my own trunk, but it leaves my mind quickly and I grasp the quill so hard I almost snap it as I try to think of what to say.

I begin: Dear Father...

*

He betrayed me. I slam the door of the dorm shut and storm over to the window where I have stood so many times before, but now the breeze that blows leaves around the courtyard in the dusky light is only mocking and cruel. _It_ cares nothing of me, of my father, of the Dark Lord, of all the people that have died. Why should it? It's a breeze. It doesn't even _think_. I'm letting myself be carried away, but at the moment it feels good to let white-hot anger burn at my insides and go a little crazy.

I never thought that the Dark Lord was going to kill all the Mudbloods. God damn Father! God damn Lord Voldemort - yeah, I'm not afraid to say the name now, am I? Sorry, mister, I may be afraid but I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of cringing in terror! I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. This is not happening. Slytherin didn't even want that - he just didn't want the Mudbloods in Hogwarts! God, I might hate Hermione Granger but I wouldn't want to _kill _her! I thought Father was so great and powerful and kind and forgiving, even to Mudbloods, and then he sides with You-Know-Who to kill all those Muggles - !

The Dark Lord's become more aggressive, more powerful, and I was just waiting for something to happen, for Father to tell me it was time to join him. And instead I get this letter telling me that the slaughter of the Mudbloods has already begun - a train, overturned in the middle of nowhere, every person killed. "I'm sure you will rejoice at this," he wrote, "for I know you hate them as much as I." Ha! Pulling a quill and parchment from my trunk and laying them on the flat stones of the windowsill, I think of what to say. An image of the trainwreck in flames, of the Muggles dying, of flesh burning and hair sizzling as mothers try to get their babies to safety is burnt onto my retinas, and I close my eyes before scratching the quill on the paper.

**Father,** I write,

**I can't believe it. Oh, I play the role of the disillusioned young one so well - but you really believe in what you're doing, don't you? You really believe in killing the Muggles and Mudbloods? What did they ever do, besides not be skilled in magic, besides being born outside of old wizarding families? I agree that they aren't of the same class as we. How can they be? But what you're doing - God damn you. **I stop writing, wondering if Father can read this. But that kind of a spell only works if you know the person's writing to you, and he doesn't - minimal risk. I stare at the paper for a long moment, then tear it into tiny pieces. I can hear Crabbe and Goyle outside the door, and I quickly drop the scraps into a dustbin before calmly walking to my bed and falling down on it. I don't really want to think any more tonight; I doubt I could survive a conversation and stay couth, or even what counts as couth for me.

My dreams are haunted by the faces of the victims, people whom I have never seen yet I know. I can almost hear my father's laughter, and when I awaken I have to bury my face in my pillow to hide the sobs.

*  
You're all I need - and maybe some faith would do me good  
Maybe some faith would do me good  
*

I've been sitting at the windowsill for at least a half-hour, but I still don't want to move. I think my dorm-mates have given up on me; in fact, I'm sure they have. Pansy always has been good at manipulating me; the clinically detached part of me says that she should have never gotten so close to me.

But now that all's said and done, I suppose I'm glad I told her.

I've never opened up to anyone before, not even her. My mother was never _there_ to talk to; I know that she went her way and my father went his. My path usually was with my father, and Mother's intersected with ours as rarely as possible. It seems that she purposely avoided me and let my father do the parenting - whether or not this is true, I don't know. But in any case, Mother wasn't avaliable. Father isn't one for heart-to-heart chats: his idea of emotion is 'keep it as repressed as possible, then let it out in the form of hatred.' So he wasn't much help either. And Crabbe and Goyle are too thick for talking to, and I wouldn't trust any of the other Slytherins. I wouldn't trust _me_. But Pansy... Pansy somehow managed to get into my heart, I suppose, and I'm stuck with her now.

She finaly 


End file.
